Penwick

It was half past seven on the evening of All Hallows' Eve when the uncommonly large man stepped into the Clockwork Cafe with the door in hand.

"Begging your pardon," said Torben in manner of greeting. Many heads had turned and then tilted sharply upward to meet the face of the part-giant.

Unbothered by the attention and commotion he had caused with his loud entry, Torben put the door back on its hinges, dusted off his hands and plodded forward with elephantine grace. Cups and plates rattled on their tables as he came by, and it was only after the loud and lumbering lump of lard had passed that any guest would notice the giant's shadowy companion.

While not a small man, the thin and stretched figure that clung to the part-giant's shadow was like a matchstick next to a log. This was Warrick Withers, a wizard so thin and reed-like that it appeared altogether likely he had been sat on by Torben at least once. Not that anyone was given time to meditate this possibility seriously before the next ungodly noise had already announced itself.

The legs of a small table being dragged loudly over the floor were like the sound of very large nails on a very large chalkboard. Torben, as the part-giant was called, had long ago learned that common chairs were unfit to hold him, and so he had pulled a small table toward a larger one and sat down upon with a pleased sigh. "S'alright, s'alright," he said, waving his enormous hand good-naturedly to anyone who hadn't yet been stunned into complete immobility.

Inevitably, the noise and commotion had drawn the attention of the proprietor, who emerged hastily from the kitchen with a teatowel slung over one shoulder and was followed by a levitating, steaming kettle in hot pursuit. Many of the paper bats which had been put up with wires had been taken down by Torben's rather large head during his entrance, and now lay sprawled motionless on the floor. Mr. Stephens regarded the casualties with a grimace and boldly decided that something ought to be done.

“Ahem,” he ventured to say. "Ahem, can I help you, sirs?"

Knowing precisely how much concern and alarm was hidden in that magnificent ‘ahem’, Warrick flashed gold between his long, nimble fingers. It was perhaps his greatest magic trick, because soon after showing gold, the door, the bats, and the odd seating arrangement were forgiven and forgotten. Not fifteen minutes later, several platters of food had been brough to the giant's table and a semblance of regularity had returned to the Clockwork Cafe.

Warrick watched with steepled fingers as Torben started on his fourth plate. "You sure you don't want some?" Offered the giant, but Warrick shook his head, content with his singular cup of ginger tea. "We shouldn't be in these good people's hair for much longer," he said, enunciating each word perfectly. He knew full well that his words would be received by many more ears than just Torben's giant red ones.

"I was thinking, I was, you couldn't pay me to stay," said Torben between mouthfuls of sausage. "Something weren't right on the road in, gave me such a turn it did." For a short while the guests were treated to a pause in the part-giant's lip-smacking noises as he fell silent. "It was so cold."

"It's almost winter," answered Warrick with a shrug.

"This wasn't the usual cold. It went right through me coat it did, and I've a good coat."

"Maybe you're getting old." Warrick sipped his tea and thought a while before he added. "We're not far from Penwick, and there's more ghosts about this time of year, perhaps-?"

"It weren't ghosts. Besides, I'd recognize Sir Bedivere a mile off. Finest ghost you'll ever meet! I wonder if he still haunts the north tower, gave me quite a fright when I was a small boy."

"Smaller," Warrick noted with a chuckle.

"This cold were nothing like that," Torben insisted. "It made me want to sit down it did, made me think of..." Torben's voice faltered there and trailed off into nothingness. He stabbed another sausage with his fork, which looked like children's cutlery in his bin-sized hands. “It made me feel like I’d fallen ill and like I’d never get better.”

"Perhaps indigestion then," said Warrick. "You said yourself you had two whole shepher'd pies from that town, Pembrook?"

"Pembroke. Best pie I ever had, though this ain't half bad either. Are you sure you-?"

"No thank you," answered Warrick politely. "I'd rather talk business. Do you have it?"

Now at last the giant took some care to lower his voice, and the rest of him followed suit as he leaned forward across the table. Then, the two men began discussing their business in hushed voices.

Around them, the Clockwork Café resumed its evening rhythm. Some of the guests were merely passing through town, while others lived and worked in the small village, but were now pretending not to be home so as to avoid the hungry packs of first and second-year Penwick students who would soon come knocking for sweets.

An enchanted mechanical tea cart rolled between tables with its usual grace, serving spicy ginger tea and bisuits. Jack-o-lanterns flickered and leered from the windowsills, and from the kitchen sounded the clinking and clattering of Torben's many plates being cleaned.

But at certain tables, heads remained turned toward the corner where the part-giant sat. A witch in emerald robes hid herself behind a magazine, but could not be seriously reading it as she was holding it upside down. From another corner, an elderly wizard had been raising the same spoonful of soup dozens of times over, clearly possessing more of an appetite for gossip than for food. Nearest a window, a gentleman in a weathered raincot had gone still as the coatrack next to him.

For some among them, who had lived in Wyrdlan long enough, Torben's tale had stirred an old memory, a shameful tale that could not bear to see the light of day.

Outside the café's warm windows, beyond the cozy interior and glowing jack-o-lanterns, a thickening fog rolled down from the hills. And somewhere in that fog, on the old north road that wound past Wyrdlan toward an old barrow, a pair of gleaming eyes waited patiently for its prey to arrive.